Arrington: ‘Demo needs to die’ — TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, in discussing the decision to place TechCrunch 50 at the same time as DemoFall said, ‘Demo needs to die.’ — The scheduling of the TechCrunch 50 conference, which was announced Wednesday, has pit it directly against DemoFall …

Imitation Is Flattery? Or Just Bad for Entrepreneurs? — There are a dozen other, perhaps more important and insightful, posts I'd rather be writing today. But, alas, my friends at TechCrunch put a wall in my path today and I just can't ignore it, despite counsel from perhaps wiser advisers to do just that.

Apple passes Wal-Mart, now #1 music retailer in US — Over the past few years, we have watched Apple climb the music sales chart courtesy of the iTunes. Last month we learned that Apple passed Best Buy to become the number two retailer in the the US. Now, Apple has ascended to the top of the charts …

MySpace Music On The Way — Settles with Universal — MySpace is set to launch a joint music venture with three of the major music labels, according to sources familiar with the deal. — The new venture will be called MySpace Music and will offer music streaming, MP3 downloads, concert tickets, ringtones and merchandise.

Psst...secrets of Google News exposed! — Often publishers ask us why Google News didn't include one of their articles, or skipped the image associated with an article. In the search for answers, we've noticed that there's a lot of confusion about how we include and rank articles.

An Atom-powered Intel? Not a chance — With Intel's focus on the new Atom-brand processors being described at the Intel Developer Forum this week, “Atom-powered” is the obvious description of the mobile Internet devices (MIDs) these chips will go into... and it seems like half the IDF stories …

FriendFeed's Increased Filtering Clears Deck of Unwanted Junk — Before the end of 2007, after making FriendFeed an integral part of my daily Web experience, I publicly posted a number of requested updates that would help make the social Web activity aggregation service even more of a must-visit site than it already was for me.

IBM and Linden Partner on Enterprise-Class Second Life — IBM and Linden Labs are partnering to develop a version of Second Life that will live behind the corporate firewall. — As I mentioned in my previous post, Second Life is far too fat and clumsy to be taken seriously in the enterprise.

Study: ‘Influencers’ Possess Less Clout — IN THE WORLD OF SOCIAL media, so-called “influencers” might have less clout than some marketers think. — According to a new study from Canadian research firm Pollara, self-described social media users put far more trust in friends and family online …

Trademark Dispute Pits Apple vs. The Big Apple — The Big Apple has a new logo, and Apple says: Drop dead. — At issue is the emblem for New York City's GreeNYC campaign, which has started to appear around the city on bus shelters, hybrid gasoline-electric taxicabs and even Whole Foods shopping bags.

Hands off our network, Bell tells CRTC — BY PETER NOWAK — Bell Canada Inc. is calling on the courts to scrap mandated access by competitors to its network, a move that could jeopardize some smaller companies that sell phone and internet services. — The Montreal-based company …

Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe's 64-bit roadmap — As you've probably seen, among the great features in the Lightroom 2.0 beta is its ability to run 64-bit-native on Mac (Intel, 10.5.x) and Windows (Vista 64). If you think it feels great to beat Aperture to the punch here, you're right. :-)

iPhone used less for talk, more for Web and music, says iSuppli — US iPhone owners are spending their time enjoying all its capabilities - voice, data communications and multimedia entertainment - rather than exclusively using it for traditional voice calls, according to a latest consumer survey by research firm iSuppli.

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